All thats allowed
by Nona Mousy
Summary: post 5.22, companion to Temporary Loan. He wants to see if he lays there long enough if maybe he can just sink down through the earth and into the cage.


Its Sammy's birthday and he's in the car and driving even though being in the Impala _hurts_.

There's this pounding ache in his chest and it throbs in time to the sound of tires running over broken pavement. Its not like its a new pain because its been there chipping away at him ever since that day but its sharp and fresh all over again now, here in the car and alone, in a way it hasn't been in weeks.

The drive back to Lawrence is silent and wrong because he tries to put on music but every tape and every song in the car is a memory and if he lets them come he's going to drive off the side of the road or something equally stupid and he _promised_... he promised....

The cemetery doesn't look any different really. Rain has washed away the blood but there are tire tracks still faint in the grass.

It could have happened yesterday.

He's shaking all over when he turns off the engine and it takes him three tries to get the door open. The sky is bright, the sun glinting valiantly off of rusted metal and worn stone and that makes it worse somehow than if the world had just stayed that dull overcast gray forever.

Its not fair that the world keeps living like nothing has happened. Its not fair that it can be a beautiful day like this without his brother. Its not fair that its exactly what Sam would have wanted... for everything and that the sky can give it to him when Dean is failing so badly to live up to those wishes.

"I'm trying." He tells the ground. "I'm trying but its so hard."

There are tears blurring his vision and its the first time he's let himself cry since he went to stay with Lisa and Ben. He tries to blink them away but its like now that he's started again he can't stop and they drag all the pain back to the surface with them and its hard to breathe around it all.

"They're... They're good. Everything I should want. Its just..." He swallows, tries to find words even though they're never going to be heard. "I know you know that all I've ever wanted was family and I know... I know you thought this was giving it to me.. but Sammy...." The name hurts so much to say that for a moment he can't continue, can't even think.

"It was you. It was always just us and you and you were my family godamnit and this ain't the same... its not even close and people... other people they don't have what we had. Nobody out here has what we have and its not the same. Its not even close and I just... I don't want to be here alone anymore."

His legs fail and he slumps to the ground. There's no line marking where the cage opened, no sign of any massive pit but he remembers where it was anyway, can feel its echo in his bones and he stretches out on the cool grass and wishes he could press down through the ground into it.

"I shoulda gone with you, Sammy. That's where this should have ended. I should have gone in the cage with you because being out here and knowing... its so much worse." He remembers Hell and the racks and the pain every day over and over and he shouldn't ever had a reason to want to go back there but this... this isn't better. The pain isn't physical, but its the same anyway and it tears at him every morning, eats at him until there's nothing left but a hollow frame and then he sleeps and dreams of his brother and wakes to spend a day dying all over again.

"I wanted to die, Sam. I still want... so bad I don't want to be here... but then I realized that I might wind up back top again and you... you wouldn't be there this time." It chokes him to say the words out loud, because they're harsher in the light of day but he knows its true.

As hard as heaven had been with Sam, he can't imagine it without him and if he goes there in the end its going to be just like hell anyway. At least in hell he would know his brother was somewhere nearby. Unseen, but there. And he thinks that might be better.

The ground is wet and soft against his face and he can feel a chill seeping into his clothes.

He lies there until long after the sun's given up and the stars are out and he can stare up at them and pretend... if he closes his eyes and let his own breaths drown out the lack of accompaniment that Sam's there with him and its just one of their quiet nights out under the sky somewhere.

Sometime after midnight he makes himself get up, and brush off and get back in the car.

He wants to stay. He wants to stay forever. He wants to see if he lays there long enough if maybe he can just sink down through the earth and into the cage.

But he doesn't, because Sam wanted something better for him and he has to try. Even if he tries and fails every day for the rest of his life. Its all he has left to give. Its all he's allowed to do.

* * *

NOTES:

I wrote Temporary Loan and then I kind of thought I was OK and then I went and watched this: .com/watch?v=ebtoO5rxs-Q (which - massive spoiler warning & also a you tube video but doc manager won't for the life of me save the whole link) and then I cried a lot and needed to write this and cry some more and I loved this episode but it kind of made me want to curl up and die somewhere at the same time and yeah now I'm just feeling kind of overwhelmed by it all and somewhere out there a much better writer than I am needs to take this up and find a happy ending because I don't want to be all weepy and pathetic until September because of this.

Companion to Temporary Loan but you don't have to read them together. Un-everythinged again because I so don't have the presence of mind to do more than run spell checker right now.


End file.
